Hold your water! New York entrepreneur sells city tap water for $1.50 a bottle
Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Food, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Simplification
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As counter-intuitive as it may seem, New York tap water is incredibly fresh and pure. It comes from a reservoir in upstate New York and, as it wends its way to the city, it is filtered, processed, cleaned, and purified. A few years ago, Vogue food editor Jeffrey Steingarten studied the city's water and found it to be every bit as tasty as most mineral waters; ironically, it also had much less bacteria.On the other hand, old pipes, cruddy sinks, and other delivery-based concerns can sometimes make the city's water less than appetizing. Consequently, it isn't all that surprising to see the bodegas and convenience stores of Manhattan filled with gallons of bottled water. To support this bottled water addiction, Poland Spring trucks clog the streets as they guzzle gas and waste money, transporting millions of gallons of bottled water over hundreds of miles.
With this in mind, entrepreneur Craig Zucker has begun bottling and selling New York City tap water. After running water through a reverse-osmosis system that removes chlorine and impurities, he markets it under the name Tap'd NY. A 20-ounce bottle runs $1.50, a fairly high price for bottled water. On the bright side, Tap'd NY doesn't need to be shipped from the mountains of Vermont, the Springs of Maine, or the rocky beaches of Fiji, which means that it is, actually, a comparatively green option. On the other hand, even irony-enhanced New Yorkers might have a hard time shelling out cash for something they already get for free!
Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. Last weekend, as he drank PBR from a can at an art opening, he realized that Craig Zucker is a total genius!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-26-2008 @ 11:53PM
SteveC said...
How much does he sell it by the 24 botlles case?icasefor a case?
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9-26-2008 @ 9:39AM
Focal said...
This is*filtered* tap water, not just tap water. I would buy it.
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11-18-2008 @ 1:38PM
kissingdoves said...
Bottling our tap is exploiting the fact that we have clean water in NYC. It's like selling air. It's taking something that should be public, CLEAN, accessible to all and privatizing it. It's just not the direction that we should be going right now especially when it's adding more trash to our landfills. What if our air became so polluted that the only people who had access to clean air were those who could afford to buy it from the private sector. The government should be responsible in making sure that our water is clean and that our air is clean. Once the private sector assumes responsibility for these functions, it relieves the government of the responsibility, leaving the neediest without.
It's exploiting people's desire for convenience. Taking what belongs to us all and packaging and selling it to us. That's not too cool. There's probably something to the idea of a product staying closer to the source but it's just not right. It's inviting the system to fail us when a private company cleans our tap. The gov't should give us clean water, no one should have to sell it and it should be accessible to all, not just people who can afford to buy cleaner water. I encourage everyone to watch the film,"Thirst" and begin to understand that there is a real ethical dilemma in what the private sector is doing. For more information about "Thirst," visit thirstthemovie.org.
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